Old is good
in many respects when it comes to software because, over time, the bugs will have been found and squashed. Systemd brings in a lot of new code which will, naturally, have lots of bugs that will take time to find & remove. This is why we get problems like this DHCP one.
Much as I like the venerable init: it did need replacing. Systemd is one way to go, more flexible, etc, etc. Something event driven is a good approach.
One of the main problems with systemd is that it has become too big, slurped up lots of functionality which has removed choice, increased fragility. They should have concentrated on adding ways of talking to existing daemons, eg dhcpd, through an API/something. This would have reused old code (good) and allowed other implementations to use the API - this letting people choose what they wanted to run.
But no: Poettering seems to want to build a Cathedral rather than a Bazzar.
He appears to want to make it his way or no way. This is bad, one reason that *nix is good is because different solutions to a problem have been able to be chosen, one removed and another slotted in. This encourages competition and the 'best of breed' comes out on top. Poettering is endangering that process.
Also: he refusal to accept patches to let it work on non-Linux Unix is just plain nasty.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
